Accessibility of different GUI Libraries
The first prototypes of the editor were developed with different GUI libraries. In particular, we focused on Qt and wxWidgets, which are both cross-platform, well documented and with a free software license available. These prototypes were tested with the same tests described in the "Accessibility tests" page and used to evaluate the accessibility of the LaTeX editors.
|
|
Test 1 |
Test 2 |
Test 3 |
Test 4 |
Test 5 |
Test 6 |
Test 7 |
Test 8 |
Test 9 |
|
wxWidgets[a] |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
HQ |
HQ |
|
wxWidgets[b] |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
HQ |
LQ |
|
Qt 5.9 [c] |
+1 |
+1 |
+1 |
-1 |
-1 |
+1 |
+1 |
LQ |
LQ |
|
Qt 5.9 [d] |
-1 |
-1 |
-1 |
-1 |
-1 |
+1 |
+1 |
LQ |
LQ |
Table 1: [a] Library built with accessibility option on; [b] Library built with accessibility option off; [c] Project compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler; [d] Project compiled with Minimalist GNU for Windows Compiler; +1: test is successful; -1: test is unsuccessful; LQ, HQ: Low, High Quality.
As resumed in table 1, the best results were obtained using wxWidgets, building it with the accessibility option turned on. Also in the standard build configuration (accessibility option off), the wxWidgets achieved good results losing only the compatibility with the "Custom scaling" option of Windows 10. In the prototypes developed with the Qt 5.9 library, the magnifiers were not able to follow the text insertion point and the text appeared pixelated. With the screen readers, the menu was accessible but it was impossible to navigate through the text with the arrow keys. Compiling the project of the Qt prototype with "Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler" instead of "Minimalist GNU for Windows Compiler" solves the problem with the screen readers but the problem with the magnifier remains. The bug was reported and we chose the wxWidgets library to develop the first version of SZS-Editor.